Commentary and news articles on the Watchtower’s child abuse scandal

The leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has boldly defied court orders to turn over the names and whereabouts of alleged child sexual abusers across the United States. Since 2014, courts have slapped the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ parent corporation – the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York – with multimillion-dollar judgments and sanctions forRead more...

KINGDOM BULLETIN #12 Over the course of the past 15 years the Watchtower has come under increasing scrutiny regarding child sexual abuse among Jehovah’s Witnesses. There have been numerous high profile lawsuits brought against elders and the Watchtower corporation, multi-million dollar judgments, capped in 2015 with the Royal Australian Commission holding a public inquiryRead more...

Wednesday, July 27 You guide me with your advice.—Ps. 73:24. Whenever we need guidance, we can “take notice of” Jehovah by consulting his Word to find out his view of matters and by seeking to apply Bible principles. Sometimes, though, a trialsome situation lingers. You may have a grievous personality conflict with someone in theRead more...

The Watchtower has produced a brief melodramatic video of a child abuse victim telling her story. It is a slickly produced public relations movie. It even has some drone footage shot over the beach as happy families frolic. At first glance one might assume that the Society is trying to help the many victimsRead more...

Allegations of abuse involving two members of the Jehovah's Witness religious movement in Newfoundland have emerged, though details of the charges are protected by a court-ordered publication ban. CBC News has learned that a former volunteer church elder and his son are facing charges. The former elder is charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation relatingRead more...

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QUESTION: Dear Robert, how is it that that sex offenders out in the world have to go on a sex registry that lets parents know of child molesters living in their neighborhood, that secular law prohibits sex offenders from living within range of a school or park... and yet a sex offender could beRead more...

One of the most senior members of the Jehovah's Witness Church worldwide said compensation could be made to people allegedly sexually abused within its ranks if there was a Biblical basis for a redress scheme. . Geoffrey Jackson is one of seven men on the church's New York-based Governing Body, which oversees decisions regardingRead more...

More than 1,000 members of the Jehovah's Witnesses (in Australia) have been identified by the church as perpetrators of child sexual abuse since 1950, but not one was reported to police, an inquiry has heard. The Sydney hearing was told the church adopted a scriptural response to abuse, which it abhorred, and had filesRead more...

Church leaders refused to co-operate with a police investigation into a sex attack by one of their congregation on a teenage girl. Jehovah’s witness Paul Atkin has now been jailed for five years after admitting to sexual activity with a 15-year-old. A court heard the South Shields branch of the church carried out theirRead more...

SHIELDS GAZETTE - DAILY MAIL ONLINE - THE JOURNAL - THE SUNDERLAND ECHO "CHURCH officials hushed up a child sex scandal in their ranks and refused to co-operate with police." Over the years the Watchtower Society has been accused over and over by hundreds of child abuse victims and their advocates of enforcing policies upon congregation elders thatRead more...